Under seasonal and other pressures, recaps of our selections for the last several shows have been delayed. For the benefit of all who have been holding their breath (hi, Mom!), here's the skinny on the tracks we played.

Three cheers

Italian Masterworks

Riccardo Muti, Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO Resound 2018)

Mascagni, Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana

Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut

Orchestral poetry of supreme refinement.

*

American Romantics, American String Quartet plays music of Antonin Dvorak, Robert Sirota, and Samuel Barber (American String Quartet 2018)

Below, I offer eyewitness accounts of two noteworthy theatrical productions designed by the cult icon Edward Gorey before pop celebrity descended on his far from willing brow. The first, a postage-stamp Dracula on the faraway island of Nantucket, presaged the pharaonic blow-up deposited on the stage of Broadways's Martin Beck Theatre several seasons later. The second, a one-off Don Giovanni in Manchester, New Hampshire, sank without a trace. At a guess, the director Peter Sellars, in his wunderkind phase, took a hard look at the show and realized that Gorey's aesthetic preempted his own. For the landmark Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy Sellars went on to stage he drafted better team players.

"To mash the pie of truth into the face of power": such, the poet declares in the opening sentence of a prose preface, was his purpose embarking on The Trumpiad, mock epic to end all mock epics of our Gilded Orange Age. A certain slapdash quality goes with the territory. In the back-of-book acknowledgments of supporters and advisers—"too numerous," endless roll call notwithstanding, "to enumerate"—the author takes ceremonial ownership of any "clubfoot rhythms and imperfect rhymes."

Listed below are the tracks we played on October 7, October 28, and November 4.

Keepers

Rolling Down to Old Maui – Kimo Nevius (kimosongs.com, 2018)

Rolling down to old Maui (traditional)/The Other Side of the World/Lahaina Town

Whaling is a closed chapter in Hawaii, thank goodness. Yet it's good to hear some old stories, recaptured and performed with gruff authority by a talented local songwriter-troubadour. The CD comes with an informative album of photographs, notes, and lyrics.